The European Commission (EC) has opened a 'call for evidence' (via LWN.net) to inform the "European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy." In other words, it's looking for experts and relevant parties to help it figure out how to push towards open source software.
This has the SteamOS-loving and Linux-pining part of myself getting all excitable on a Friday afternoon, because any movement towards open source software can only mean more publicity and acceptance of, and potentially even funding in, open source projects in general, including Linux and its gaming-related off-shoots like SteamOS, Bazzite, and Nobara.
"A strategic and operational framework to strengthen the use, development and reuse of open digital assets within the Commission, building on the results achieved under the 2020–2023 Commission Open Source Software Strategy."
In other words, it wasn't a limited push; the Commission seems to really want to lean into open source as much as it can. Which is fantastic, of course, and helps explain this recent call for evidence. To this end, it established the Open Source Program Office to oversee and help implement the push.
The recent call for evidence, however, seems to focus more specifically on solving the EU's reliance on foreign software: "The EU faces a significant problem of dependence on non-EU countries in the digital sphere. This reduces users’ choice, hampers EU companies’ competitiveness and can raise supply chain security issues as it makes it difficult to control our digital infrastructure (both physical and software components), potentially creating vulnerabilities including in critical sectors."
You only have to look at the fines the EC dishes out to big tech firms to know where it stands on a lot of that.
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The call for evidence is intended to figure out how to shape its strategy, taking input from the open source community, businesses, public experts, researchers, and more—essentially, anyone knowledgeable and relevant. It's nice and fitting to see that the EC is openly sourcing feedback to help inform its movement towards EU-first open source software.
The EC also wants to ensure the EU is going further in this direction than before. It points out that while it has "invested in open source and its communities, with good results" (for example, through the Next Generation Internet initiative and investing in RISC-V hardware and related open-source software stacks), "supporting open-source communities solely through research and innovation programmes is not sufficient."
All very good news for anyone with an interest in seeing Linux do well, of course, however indirect that path might be—any positive movement towards an open source philosophy can only help open source companies, movements, and products. And given the increasing interest in Linux in the PC gaming industry, mostly thanks to SteamOS, that will be increasingly relevant to us PC gamers moving forwards.
Which is a good thing, I think. Whenever I think about open source, I'm reminded of the discussions I had with various experts about age verification and digital ID in general. From the time I spent discussing and reflecting upon those technologies, the one thing I came out most certain of was that the most promising visions of the future is one where technologies are based on open standards.
Speaking of which, the EU has adopted an open source framework for age verification.
If we do end up handing our personal data off to verify our identities—an idea I think we should refrain from considering to be inevitable—wouldn't it be best if the codebases, zero-knowledge proof-based or otherwise, are available to be combed through by anyone? And heck, a general open source culture might even encourage us to think beyond solo providers for these services, perhaps considering blockchain-like approaches to such potentially ubiquitous systems.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. First, we need more open source in general. So, good on you, EC, keep that ball rolling.
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